Anya Colley, aged 17 years from Nottinghamshire has just returned from representing GB at the 28th Annual Quakysense International Jet Sports Boating Association (IJSBA) World Finals, presented by Monster Energy. The international event was held 10th through to the 18th October 2009 on Lake Havasu, Arizona, USA and had over 600 entries from 37 nations.
Not only did Anya have a great time competing at the event, she brought home two more World Titles. Competing against the men Anya known as the Pink Lady won Amateur Ski Open and Expert Ski Limited. On top of this she entered Pro/Am Ski Limited with the men and took a third overall and after winning the first heat and moto 1 of the ladies class she had a bad moto two in the Pro/Am ladies giving her a third overall in that class. So out of four classes entered Anya made the podium in all four. This gives Anya a total of 7 World titles now and she is just seventeen years old. In 2007 Anya won the Junior Limited & Junior Drag race World Titles, in 2008 she won Novice Ladies, Novice Limited and the Open Drag race and now in 2009 she has the Amateur Open and Expert Ski Limited titles under her belt. All but one of her World titles (Novice ladies) Anya has competed against the men to take the World Titles.
“This year saw some great racing and I had a few good battles – there are some really fast guys out there, I had a great time and loved almost every minute of it”. It is difficult for us to race in the USA as we have to ship everything out there and this year I had a lot of trouble with one of my ski’s and my Dad, Malcolm Colley worked almost constantly on it to try and get the problem sorted with limited parts and tools out there and I would like to say a huge thank you to him and to everyone else who helped try to sort the ski – the people know who they are. Although I do the riding it really is team work and I couldn’t do it without the support of my Mum, Dad and brother Joel. Joel doesn’t come to the racing but he is always there for me. Also thanks to my boyfriend Pro rider James Bushell for his encouragement and support.
Although I really enjoyed my racing at the World Finals I was deeply saddened by the tragic racing accident on Friday when one of my friends from Europe - Italian Cesare Vismara, 36 who rode for Team Serbia lost his life when his ski was hit by a competitors ski during a race. K38 rescue team were immediately at the scene but Vismara was declared dead at the scene. All the riders were deeply shocked by this very tragic and rare accident and everyone decided to postpone racing on Friday. Vismara and Team Serbia loved racing and he will always remain in our hearts and my thoughts go out to all his family & friends. It was difficult to race again on Saturday but it is what Vismara would have wanted. It was also the first World Finals without race director Jeremy Hoyland from Barnsley who sadly went missing at sea whilst race directing in Bali at the Asian games after the World Finals last year. It was very strange not having Jeremy on the beach but Jeremy would have been very proud of team GB this year said Anya.
Anya’s two World titles wins also contributed along with Lisa Barsby’s two wins, Jim Goodchilds 2 wins and hard charging junior Joseph Edwards 2 wins to Great Britain bringing home the Nations trophy this year thanks to team GB winning 8 World Titles –“ a great achievement for a little country like Great Britain against much larger countries like the USA, Good job everyone” commented Anya. The whole of team GB did an amazing job and every rider finished top ten so that says a lot about the standard of British riders.
Anya would like to say a big Thank you to all her sponsors and for more news and photos visit her website www.anyas.co.uk.
